Sugar-sweetened beverages should be regulated like tobacco as a first step to combating New Zealand’s obesity epidemic, the Public Health Association Conference was told today in New Plymouth.

Gerhard Sundborn, from Auckland University, has proposed an ‘end-game’ strategy for sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs) in New Zealand.

There seems no end to the desire of some people to remove all choice in people’s lives. Now they want to eliminate soda drinks.

Can you just imagine it as their ideas get hold. You bring a small bottle of coke to work and you’re told that you can’t drink it inside. Then in a few years you’re having a coke in a park, and you get told you can’t drink coke in a park as it may get seen by a kid and influence them.

Eventually they ban the consumption of soda drinks in bars and restaurants, and of course all soda drinks are sold in plain packaging and advertising has long been banned of them.

All this to because the master class know what is good for us, and must protect us from our own choices.

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“Can you just imagine it as their ideas get hold. You bring a small bottle of coke to work and you’re told that you can’t drink it inside. Then in a few years you’re having a coke in a park, and you get told you can’t drink coke in a park as it may get seen by a kid and influence them.”

Very true and of course a legitimate complaint.

The problem is nobody spoke out strongly enough against the anti-smoking zealots who pioneered these kind of fascist outrages. In fact I think National probably still gives money to the groups behind them.

National as a party claims to have regard for individual rights and responsibilities.

Claims are one thing. Action in regard to those claims is obviously another.

Zealots for these types of restrictions can only hold their opinions so firmly if they truly believe that humans are mindless automatons who simply do not have the power to make rational decisions themselves. It is, deep down, a sad display of dull-minded paternalism sliding into outright misanthropy, dressed up as “concern.”

We could increase taxes on it at the next budget. We can tell the masses that it is needed to fund surgery on the obese. We could then use the revenue raised to hire more government bureaucrats who will have to vote for us if they want to keep their jobs. Brilliant !!!!

An authoritarian approach to a problem we have inherited from our biology – we like sweet food simply because it was a rare thing on the African Savannah where we evolved as a species, and our brains developed a reward for when we discovered it – seasonal fruit and honey. Plentiful sweet foods have only been available in the last century, and more so in the last half of the last century – in the richer countries, but the rest of the world is catching up and heart disease and diabetes now the fastest growing causes of death in the world. Forget terrorism, forget car crashes, even cancer is on the way down thanks to better drugs and treatments, your own sweet tooth is killing you and the guy next to you slowly but surely. We haven’t evolved the unconscious ability to regulate sugar intake for the energy demands of our modern sedentary lifestyles.

Fortunately we do have conscious brains, the ability of language and can learn about the consequences, and can make free will choices about food and exercise. But we do know that that part of our brains involved in logical thinking, planning, and assessing long term consequence, the pre-frontal cortex, does not fully develop until around 23-25 years old. This is why teenagers tend to make bad choices more than adults, not to mention children who are highly impressionable. So even education about food is a problem. We also need foods that are sugar free (choices). We cant escape the sh*t because the food companies put it in just about everything as it tastes good it helps the product sell. Studies have shown that sugar may also have addictive qualities, so food companies that target sweet foods at children (Kelloggs, McDonalds etc.) are really onto something – get them while they are young and impressionable.

We restrict alcohol consumption through taxes, and have educational campaigns about drinking responsibly, restrict sex to consenting adults, and provide sex ed in schools etc. For consistency it makes sense we would also consider food education, and perhaps some taxes on excessively sweet products – candy, and soft-drinks. Especially since artificial sweeteners exist that mean people can still get a cheap sweet drink if they want. Provided choice is maintained, I have no objections to some kind of sugar tax. We will win out when people lose weight, and stop costing the taxpayer huge bills when they develop heart disease and diabetes.

Recently told I’m diabetic and decided out of self interest to do proper homework in to food/sugars/carbs etc.

The research is all correlative with the link between soft drinks and obesity and obesity related health issues being no stronger than the links between many other poor eating habits and poor health habits, and obesity. The conclusions from those with no self interest are that in relation to food we should be more concerned with the ‘hidden’ sugars and carbs in processed foods and the increased, predominantly simple, carb intake since the fears over fat were raised in the 70s. Soft drinks are one of the most honest foods in that we know they have high sugar content.

In the US fat intake has actually dropped but still people get fatter.

There is the issue of the food industry’s tactics in all of this. They have the problem that the vast majority of mechanisms of making their food more attractive to the palate are cumulatively unhealthy. To circumnavigate efforts to be seen as unhealthy they use numerous tactics. Little tricks like the thirty odd ways they have of just labeling added sugars, for instance.

Having spent many an hour reading labels in the supermarket I would say that a decent labeling regime would be nice and would actually be more effective than these banning type tactics.

I forgot to mention, one of the reasons I think lack of exercise rather than increased intake is responsible for obesity is that, although I find counter-claims, I am lead to believe by records that calorific intake is not increasing in line with peoples weight.

And as a simple application of physics where our weight is a sum of energy in less energy out it isn’t that, on average, our energy in is increasing.

mavxp (468) Says: September 22nd, 2013 at 12:50 pm
” food companies put it in just about everything as it tastes good it helps the product sell. Studies have shown that sugar may also have addictive qualities, so food companies that target sweet foods at children (Kelloggs, McDonalds etc.) are really onto something – get them while they are young and impressionable. ”

Yes this is true, just the other day I was pouring over this sweet chilli sauce , and I thought I would see sugar content .
…. and you get kilojoules per serving and per centage carbohydrates and so on , designed to not inform you .
It turned out this hot little sauce was 80% sugar

as slijmbal (1,045) Says: September 22nd, 2013 at 12:54 pm
“Having spent many an hour reading labels in the supermarket I would say that a decent labeling regime would be nice and would actually be more effective than these banning type tactics.”

I felt bad about all this so I gulped down a bottle of wine instead, 750ml, 12% alcohol 7 calories per cc alcohol, 650 calories

The real cause of obesity is lack of physical activity. Kids love being competitive. Socialist schooling got rid of anything competitive and focused on “everyone’s a winner”. This bored the competitive kids so they gave up playing sport. They then moved to computer games where they were free to compete with whoever they want.
Some kids liked physical interactions such as bull rush, tackle rugby and rugby league. These also were banned from schools. Kids now play aggressive computer games instead.
Kids used to love going outside. Parents now (especially single mothers) don’t want their kids going outside because criminals that could hurt their kids are either let off or released back into society at the earliest possible time. They now stay inside.

I see that some people like to use biology as an excuse to control sugar (“We evolved to crave it, so we can’t help it! We need help to fight our biology!”) while at the same time other people will use biology as an excuse to protect things like gay marriage (“They can’t help it, they were born that way! What right do you have to legislate against something that isn’t a choice!”). For the record, I am absolutely for gay marriage and against regulation of sugar, tobacco etc, because I like to be consistent. We may be subject to biological urges, but we also have choices we can make. In the case of gay marriage and eating sugar, those choices harm no-one else, and thus should not be regulated. Simple. And the cost to the taxpayer argument regarding obesity-related disease doesn’t really hold water in that, if obese people do die younger, what about the savings in pensions AND the savings in medical costs due to old age that even the healthiest will still succumb to?

There is no comparison to smoking and drinking a can of coke.
It’s simple – I’m sure you can understand: If you smoke in the same room as me, you adversely effect me through second hand smoke. If you drink a can of coke in the same room as me, no effect on me whatsoever.
It is the right thing to ban smoking indoors in a workspace. Everybody has to work there. It is arrogant to think you can light up around your co-workers, and they should have to suffer because of your poor health choices. Drinking a can of coke – hey knock yourself out.

When you cheered for intervention on smoking you cheered for fascist government that attacked personal choice and private property rights. The same thuggish behavior and statist thinking patterns that would underpin any legislation against “sugar sweetened beverages”.

Its OK, I know that you are like most brainwashed communists in that any theorem that extends to matters like rights and responsibilities and liberty is beyond your comprehension.

Yep, I’m proud to live in a country where the government/taxpayer provides healthcare. It is a basic human right in a civilised society that everyone should have access to healthcare regardless of income.

If you don’t like it here in New Zealand, then don’t let the door slam you on the ass on the way out.

Redbaiter – you make the smoking/coke comparison, not me. It’s your argument!
I’m saying that they are two different things. One has a direct negative health effect on others, one doesn’t. Simple. They should be treated differently.

As I said Dennis, if you had studied history you would know you are only talking Marxist rubbish. There have been many occasions throughout civilisation when men existed in peace and harmony without the horror of the statist society you and other communists would impose upon us.

Believe it or not, your sick socialist society is a passing phase that will one day be looked back upon as a time of darkness and despair, and not inappropriately will probably be compared to the “dark ages” of Europe given that as then, logic and common sense took a backseat to irrational superstition and mass hysteria.

bc, the massive taxes on tobacco are justified by claiming it is to offset increased medical costs. This is a bald faced lie.

1. The amount taken in taxes is way more than the increased medical costs.

2. Everyone dies, usually after a period of deterioration, smoker or not. The only difference is smokers die sooner, therefore there is a saving in superanuation and on going medical costs.

Bad diet is killing more people than tobacco, and sugar (not fat) has been identified as the culprit. It is costing us huge money and there should therefore be HUGE taxes on foods the government does not approve of, in your world.

In fact this problem arose from the governments of the Western nations meddling in the first place by telling us fat was the problem. Then came the low fat craze and that is when the obesity epidemic started. Food makers added more flavor with Sugar instead of fat. It has been all down hill since then.

bc, bullshit. The whole “passive smoking” thing came from misquoting a discredited paper. It has been quoted so much for so long that people never even stop to question it. Breathing in the odd whiff of drifting smoke does you no harm at all.

It will be sad to see the end of bottled juices, since premium Keri orange juice and Charlie’s 100% not from concentrate both have more sugar in them than Coca Cola. Perhaps this initiative is being pushed by Fonterra since dairy based drinks (that can use fat for flavouring instead of sugar) will be the last man standing.

“Civilisation is not the normal state and democracy is not the inevitable consequence of freedom.”

As I said, a mind crippled by Marxist cant, and one that would impose the most vicious statist apparatus upon us all. One that drives us into debt, that drives our children into debt, that regulates us and taxes us without limit other than the eventual total destruction of our civilisation.

A man with no faith or trust in his fellow man and who with mentally afflicted blindness, sees not the inevitability of his foolishness even when it is starkly exhibited throughout Europe and in other socialist dungeons.

Dennis stands on the watchtowers and shoots anyone who attempt to cross the Berlin Wall. He forced Jews into carriages to take them to death camps. He cripples freedom in China. He jails dissidents in Cuba. He does all of these things because they are deemed by their respective governments to be for the good of the collective at some time in history.

And to cap it all off, he would if it was in his power deprive people of the right to choose between a real name and a pseudonym when they comment on blogs. For as he chose to use his real name, therefore it must be that whoever chooses differently is to be charged with a thought crime.

As for historical examples that run counter to Dennis’s sick cynicism, here’s one and it gives rise to the question- How did people not only survive such a time, but enjoy it and live in prosperity and peace to an extent far beyond what we do today?

Simple answer. People who thought like Dennis were as scarce as rocking horse shit. The evil of Marxism was yet to begin its long march through the cultural institutions of the wWest.

We will revert. With Hannan and Farage and Cruz and Lee striding the political stage the sick deranged society built by Dennis and his ilk is on its death bed. Its last breath cannot come soon enough.

Dennis stands on the watchtowers and shoots anyone who attempt to cross the Berlin Wall. He forced Jews into carriages to take them to death camps. He cripples freedom in China. He jails dissidents in Cuba.

I’m fine for people to eat all the sugar in the world – as long as they pay for their own hospital bills when their obesity effects their health

The trouble is they don’t pay for it. My taxes go towards paying for their treatment. You can’t have it both ways. You either give people freedom and let them deal with the consequences or you don’t. But people can’t have that freedom because, frankly, they don’t know how to make good choices.

Until people take responsibility for their own health bills then, yes, I do want policies put in place to protect them from themselves and to ensure resources go towards people who are sick through no fault of their own.

Lucy, that is a very slippery slope you are on. If you need a life saving operation, how would you like the doctor to deny you surgery because you did not exercise enough… according to some politicians ?

Ha, ha a homosexual insult. Not bad!
Better come up with another insult, though. Unlike the homophobes in here that are so worried about their own sexuality that they have to interfere with others, I don’t find that insulting.

And no, I don’t believe that the government should control our lives. As a rule, the less government intervention the better.
I see the role of government as an institution that sets policies to improve outcomes for its citizens. So dealing to smoking is a no-brainer. Smoking benefits NO ONE but the tobacco companies.
So tax away (on tobacco). Price has been shown to be the biggest motivator to get people to quit.
Every one benefits: the taxpayer benefits from the revenue stream, society benefits from improved health outcomes (and less health costs), and eventually the smoker will benefit when he/she gives up the filthy habit.

Kea, if you really believe that second hand smoke isn’t damaging to your health, then you are either ignorant or you really are the troll that people accuse you of being.
Go ahead, inhale all the second hand smoke that you want, but I’ll pass. I believe the science on this one.

Re your 2:19pm post. I don’t really care if the taxation from smoking is more than the medical costs of treating smokers. The revenue gained from taxing smokers is just an added benefit. To me the real purpose of taxing tobacco, is to give a strong motivator to people to give up.

“I think increasing obesity is solely down to decreasing amounts of exercise.”

Strange that calorie consumption per capita increased 20 percent between 1982 and
2000 in the US. This is well researched.

Similar the reduction in energy expenditure through our increased sedentary lifestyle is also well researched.

The combination is the problem.

@mm
“We can expect taxation targeted to sugar consumption when the diabetes epidemic reaches full bloom, not before.”

Will not solve the problem – the same way that the opprobrium of fat (now believed to be overdone) led to switching from fats to sugars and carbs then taxing sugar will lead to ever more simple carbs in the diet. These are probably worse than sugars as one can eat a lot more of them.

It will, however, increase the taxes poor people pay.

The current thinking (notice I say current) is that the diabetic epidemic about to hit us relates to Type 2 and comes from insulin insensitivity and leads to ‘metabolic syndrome’, the real killer in all of this. The T2 diabetes looks to come from swamping our bodies in carbs and sugars, causing excessive insulin production to manage the sugar levels this causes which in turns leads to decreased sensitivity to insulin and eventual death of the beta cells that produce insulin as they basically wear out.

Lack of exercise also decreases insulin sensitivity.

The focus on sugar is immensely simplistic and thus doomed to failure. For instance, white rice, white bread, pasta, breakfast cereals etc will actually cause my blood sugar levels to increase as bad or worse as a soft drink – I’ve tested my blood sugar to see how it behaves with different foods. Most breakfast cereals make coke look like a health drink. Fruit smoothies are surprisingly bad as the roughage is basically de-roughed in making the smoothie and roughage slows down the sugar intake from fruit etc, etc

Don’t tax it just make it easier to make the right choices – I promise you the food industry will always be at least one step ahead of any taxation approach.

Good comments slijmbal. I still think taxation can play a role, alongside educating people about diet and exercise. Taxing harmful things is not perfect, but it is the biggest gun in the fight against tobacco and alcohol, so maybe we shouldn’t dismiss it out of hand.

WTF Kea (@4.25pm) Are you serious? No wonder people think you come on here to troll.
Hey, I’ll take the bait:

Tell me Kea: Have you seen people sucking on 20 sticks of incense a day? Or do you recall going to a bar where the air was so thick with incense smoke you couldn’t breathe without coughing and your hair and clothes stunk of incense the next day?
Have you been in a workspace where your fellow workers smoked up on incense all day?

I haven’t really found second hand incense smoke to be a problem. As for second hand cigarette smoke …

bc, so you don’t like smoking. Fine, nor do I. But that is not what I was saying. Humans are well able to tolerate a bit of smoke without harm. That is obvious. Breathing it directly into the lungs 20 times a day for years and years is a different story. You accept that passive smoking is harmful because you want it to be true, as you are opposed to smoking for other reasons. You are also deliberately misrepresenting what I said about incense. The point is that is smoke and pretty strong smoke too. Yet you seem unconcerned about it.

Are you one of those tossers who start coughing and waving your arms around before someone has even lit their smoke ?

No Kea, I don’t accept that passive smoking is harmful because I want it to be true. I accept passive smoking is harmful because IT IS true. I accept this along with, oh I don’t know, every health organisation out there.

In 1992 EPA published its report, “Respiratory Health Effects of Passive Smoking,” claiming SHS is a serious public health problem, that it kills approximately 3,000 nonsmoking Americans each year from lung cancer, and that it is a Group A carcinogen (like benzene, asbestos, and radon).

The report has been used by the tobacco-control movement and government agencies, including public health departments, to justify the imposition of thousands of indoor smoking bans in public places.

Flawed Assumptions

EPA’s 1992 conclusions are not supported by reliable scientific evidence. The report has been largely discredited and, in 1998, was legally vacated by a federal judge.

Borland R, Yong H-H, Siahpush M, et al. Support for and reported compliance with smoke-free restaurants and bars by smokers in four countries: findings from the International Tobacco Control (ITC) Four Country Survey. Tobacco Control. 2006;15(suppl 3):34-41.

Pirkle JL, Flegal KM, Bernert JT, et al. Exposure of the US population to environmental tobacco smoke: The Third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, 1988 to 1991. JAMA. 1996;275:1233-1240.

Sugar(in its many forms) is pure shit. Its cheap so its used as a filler in many foods.
icecream is tasteless sweet crap, jam (unless you buy the realllly expensive stuff) is all sweet coloured jelly, cheap bread has high sugar content. it burns when toasted and crumbles. Bread in USA can be 7% sugar.

Still. Tax aint the right way to control it. But I am glad I am not the one trying to pick the right way

“The fundamental problem is the arrogance of some who think that because they know what is good for people, they should make it illegal for people not to do what is deemed to be good for them.”

What senseless posturing garbage. Barren of any workable logic train. Is murder “good for people”, or are laws prohibiting it just another example of the arrogant making things they don’t like illegal?

There are plenty of good arguments against this nonsense but Liberty Scott hasn’t made one.

As I understand it, the social contract in this area is:
1. People financially contribute to society largely according to their ability to do so rather than their needs.
2. We provide health and social services to people largely based on their needs rather than their ability to pay, and without any real regard to how those needs arose.
3. In order to keep a rough equivalence between contributions and expenditure, society reserves the right to restrict or prohibit certain activities where the resulting need for health and social services is disproportionately large.
You may agree or disagree with the principles of this formulation, but it’s generally how we roll on these matters. So, the debate’s not about restricting ‘freedom’, it’s about keeping an appropriate balance in the social contract.
Or, we might just dislike fat people.

The problem with taxing ‘weight gain’ foods is that it doesn’t make any sense. Why not? Because 99% of supermarket items can contribute very nicely to weight gain. What are you going to do? Tax everything upwards except cabbage and anything less that 300kj / 100g-100mls?

Potatoes will lead to obesity if consumed in large enough portion sizes for long enough.

When I was overweight – I didn’t get takeaways or eat out anywhere, and I didn’t eat piles and piles of junk food. It was simply big as anything dinners, lots of blue top milk each week.

oh yeah – apparently artificial sweeteners are bad news too and shouldn’t be considered a ‘healthy’ alternative to full HFCS soft drinks. Apartame E950, E951 is apparently controversial and to be on the safe side – nix it.

Sweeteners wreak havoc on bodily systems in the same manner as sugars…. creates the same insulin spike and hunger cravings in the expectation/ demand for more of ‘the good stuff’ you (think if you were still a hunter-gatherer and a bit underweight from lean times looking to load up, this ‘more more more’ signal then makes a lot of sense ) just scored.

Forget the “fructose” panics, at least in comparison to ordinary “sugar”. Sucrose contains fructose and that is released inside the body, so no different from “high fructose” sweeteners.

The major issue to me is that this is not a scientific issue as such, it is a political one. If one was being scientific one would be forced to admit that all carbohydrates have the same sort of affect as “sugars”, so any tax would have to cover bread for example. And imagine that a government imposed a significant tax on bread, think of the hay any opposition could make of that. So we get the focus on something that can be easily demonized, and without actually targeting the real causes, in other words a purely political campaign focussed on power and control and the assumption of the “moral high ground” to pontificate from.

Fentex – hard to take people who can’t spell ‘calorie’ seriously mate. Seriously.

JClarkson – The first post – and I like it.

iKea – claims born and bred kiwi yet constantly slips from Commonwealth to American spelling, the current example being ‘flavor’ for ‘flavour’. Strange. IKea…. must be very weak pathetic people calling you troll when you disagree with them about anything. Personally a wee bit of smoke isn’t a big deal. Trapped in a space while they fully puff puff away – as a last resort I’d end up fucking smashing them in the fucking head if I couldn’t escape.

sector7g… that’s some crazy old man type wild assertions you’ve got going on there mate – no-one has evidence for all of that shit of course apart from observation and anecdotal and the odd study. Like all good half-baked cackling there’s an element of truth in all of it. A bit too easy and simple all of those theories. Computer games are cool anyway – so whether school provides competition or not – it’s a non-physical activity that is competing for kids’ attention and they’d spend time doing it anyway. There you go – my own crazy coot counter assertion. We could keep on going all day like that.

Dennis Horne – Agree. My thing is – they take up a lot of frickin space man. Like – in a supermarket aisle. They’re actually blocking the thing off. One humanoid. Watching them waddle is good for a laugh. Must be horrible when they do actually have to move… all of that extra weight to balance. and carry.

Ed Snack ‘same sort of effect’. Define same sort of effect? There’s a bit or a lot of difference between carbs from bread / rice/ pasta/ cereal etc and simple sugars. GI difference, and sugar contains nothing but empty energy devoid of any nutrition. Unlike say oats. Which people generally believe to be nutritious.

Its not just white sugar that’s the problem…its ALL carbs…It doesn’t matter if its fruit sugar,rice,wheat,flour…whatever…if it turns into sugar in your blood and you are prone to metabolic syndrome where your insulin reacts to store it as body fat you are in trouble.

I think the first thing is to recognise the problem for what it is, then try and work out some kind of ‘solution’. I am not an expert on obesity, but it is clear food companies are not being entirely responsible and neither are individuals – the former for the profit motive, and the latter because they are either lazy and stupid, or because they have not mentally developed enough to properly look after themselves yet (kids and teens). We should ideally send signals to both that as a society we would like some corrective behaviours. This can be both food and exercise education in schools, encouraging sports (I think they do this already, but perhaps set up some charitable organisations that help kit poorer kids with football boots etc and cover their subs for a year), *and* some kind of ‘encouragement’ to eat healthier/ exercise more.

I don’t like authoritarian approaches as much as the KB regulars, but the fact is we must do something and we should go for something that works. I am not personally against taxing sugars in some way (we tax alcohol, tobacco, petrol, and they all work to reduce consumption); it raises revenue to combat the negative effects but more importantly sends a signal to the consumer. It is not the only solution, and it depends on how much tax we are talking about. I’m not in favour of a $10 can of Coke or anything.

mavxp (1) Some food companies are destestable. Kelloggs is a good example. Agreed. Products page where Kelloggs Australia write about the merits of lack thereof of sugar is laughable.

(2) The problem, if being overweight/ obese is a problem…. as we all know- is modern food availability. The human race as a species is brilliant. In NZ… if you want food… drive to a shop…. it’s all there… it’s reasonably affordable/ cheap.

I’ve made the realisation in 2013 that it’s a miracle that anyone is not overweight/ obese.

As we all know – physical activity plays a part. The degree to which it does is hotly debated. The thing with physical activity is – you could work your nads off all day and even up the energy equation with only half again to twice your resting energy needs. So it’s not like a person can run a marathon and then load up on ice cream, biscuits and chippies thinking it won’t harm them. I’m uncertain myself how much energy physical activity burns but my theory is that it does work wonders. That’s anecdotal evidence based on my own endeavours.

It’s not illegal to choose to be fat. Or not choose as the people who say they’re ‘physically addicted to food’ and can’t help it so claim. I’m a good weight… but if I want to be fat I’ll be fat. Life’s short – food is good.

I’ve been dieting/ managing my weight for coming up a year. I really enjoy being in shape. BUT: on the food front…. mmmmmm… yeah.. it’s a living death. Some of the best times that I can remember revolved around food…. eating lots and lots of tasty treats… I miss that. So… you might get health problems further down the line, sure. But life is for living. You lived your life until then… you didn’t sit around in ‘good health’ bored out of your tree waiting for the reaper.

I’ll never give up sugar 100% I can’t do it. It’s the stuff of life. Ginger crunch with brown sugar, golden syrup, condensed milk and shaved coconut. Vive la difference!!

mavxp I must’ve drifted off for the second part of your post. Guilty as charged.

When you say ‘we must do something’. You’re talking about a very sensitive issue, because it involves telling people what they can and can’t do. So you want to tell someone who weighs 110kg that they’ve ‘got to’ lose weight?

How much do you want them to lose? 10kg? 20?

It’s a person’s freedom of choice…. and you want to be ‘nanny state’. That’s all there is to it. Sometimes that’s ok. I like clean drinking water…. so they can put stuff in there to make it ‘clean’. I’m fine with that. Most people believe it’s a benefit to try and provide clean drinking water. And that’s good.

Overweight people… much trickier, don’t you think? I’ve self-regulated my energy intake and physical activity. But it’s a choice. The information is out there…. I looked at it…. and gave it a go.

Why ‘must we do something’? Is the continued existence of the species under threat due to rates of overweight people/ obesity? Possibly, but not definitely. Healthcare and social costs? I’d like to see numbers for health costs but yes it costs dearly – we know that. Social costs – how people feel, how they cope each day with all the extra weight, appearance, living with serious illness, type two diabetes etc early loss of life… yep… but that’s people’s choice. To me it’s not a problem, to others it is. To me – it’s their choice. It doesn’t affect others – there’s the dollar cost.

The only thing anyone can do is keep pushing the ‘healthy nutrition’ barrow until the cows hit the McWorks.

Bottomline: Your ‘must do something’ if it involves taking away people’s toys or pricing them up while wagging your finger – bad fat people – let’s put it this way; have you ever faced a mob of angry snack deprived lard arses? They would gobble you up in a feeding frenzy that would make starved piranhas look like supermodels at a hotdog eating contest.